{"id":65,"date":"2018-05-19T19:36:16","date_gmt":"2018-05-19T19:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/?p=65"},"modified":"2018-05-23T20:21:08","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T20:21:08","slug":"masons-moustache-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/2018\/05\/19\/masons-moustache-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mason\u2019s moustache"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Mason lost his hair to chemotherapy in 2013 and returned to school later that year, he returned with a full moustache. Sporting a brand new mock moustachio every day became this little guy\u2019s strategy for deflecting attention from his baldness. This way, he didn\u2019t have to talk about his cancer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In December 2013, Jenn Rodriguez noticed a large lump on the right side of her six-year-old son\u2019s neck. Alarmed, she took a photo of Mason\u2019s neck and immediately sent it by text to her husband Diego. But Jenn and Diego would soon discover that the lump, which had caused so much terror in them, would barely cause a ripple at the hospital for quite some time.<\/p>\n

Mason\u2019s tests kept coming back normal, so the doctors concluded that he simply had an enlarged lymph node. After three trips to the emergency, a course of antibiotics and two trips to an ear, nose and throat specialist, Mason finally underwent surgery in the New Year\u00a0to remove the lump.<\/p>\n

After surgery, they were able to perform a freeze screen test and later confirmed it was a lymphoma cancer. A series of tests, including a bone marrow, CT scan, ultrasounds, X-rays, blood work and a lymph node biopsy, revealed that Mason had stage four Burkitt\u2019s lymphoma.<\/p>\n

\u201cTelling a six-year-old he has cancer was an out of body experience for me,\u201d says Jenn. \u201cHe is six. How is this possible?\u00a0 Our world spiralled out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

“We jumped on the computer and Googled Burkitt\u2019s,\u201d says Jenn. \u201cPictures for Burkitt\u2019s are shocking.\u00a0 Researching what our son had and what the treatment might entail kept us up all night. We cried harder and longer that night than any other time. Not our son, not our six year old baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the next morning brought a new determination in the Rodriguez family. They had to win this fight. And with that determination, Team Mason was born.<\/p>\n

Mason went through five rounds of extremely intense chemotherapy, each round bringing new challenges. Mason never gave up. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want to do it for one more second, but he never quit,\u201d says Jenn. \u201cHe was amazing. He is the bravest person I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mason spent 60 nights at the Alberta Children\u2019s Hospital. Jenn stayed at the hospital, while Diego stayed home with Mason\u2019s older brother Bennett. Each morning, when Diego dropped Bennett off for school, they would take a picture and send it to Jenn and Mason. Jenn and Mason would then send a photo back. This was their new normal, their new way of being a family together.<\/p>\n

On May 14th, they heard the magical words every oncology family dreams of hearing: \u201cYour child is in remission.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his broviac line was removed, Mason was able to lay down in a bath for the first time in months. \u201cHe lay in that tub until the water went cold,\u201d says Jenn. \u201cI will never forget the look on his face that day. There was so much peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so many mustaches.<\/p>\n

Unlike his brother Bennett, Mason has never enjoyed being the centre of attention, so when he started school with a bald head in September, he started wearing mock mustaches.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cIt is his way of having people focus on something other than how he looks or how great his hair was growing back,\u201d says Jenn.<\/p>\n

Although Mason has a full head of hair now, he still wears a mustache every now and then.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll go to the bathroom and pull a mustache from his pocket and return to class with it on,\u201d says his father Diego. \u201cIt\u2019s really funny because sometimes he forgets he\u2019s wearing it, so when I pick him up from school, he\u2019ll come out with a mustache on and all the other parents start laughing. It\u2019s become Mason\u2019s thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the support at school has been incredible, there is a place where Mason feels totally accepted with or without a mustache. That place is Camp Kindle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest highlight of the year for the kids was camp,\u201d says Diego. \u201cThey can\u2019t stop talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCamp was truly a turning point for Mason,\u201d says Jenn. \u201cHe came back home as the kid we used to know. He learned to have fun again at camp. When we picked them up, they didn\u2019t want to come home with us. They wanted to have more time at camp. They absolutely loved every second of Camp Kindle and they cannot wait to go back next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKids Cancer Care is the most incredible organization I have ever encountered,\u201d says Jenn. \u201cThe support that they give families going through this unbelievable experience is above and beyond anything I ever expected. We never would have met the people we have and created a little community here if we were not part of an organization like Kids Cancer Care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every year, you give more than 700 kids like Mason a place where they belong\u2014bald heads, battle scars, mucho moustaches and all\u2014without having to explain a thing.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Mason lost his hair to chemotherapy in 2013 and returned to school later that year, he returned with a full moustache. Sporting a brand new mock moustachio every day became this little guy\u2019s strategy for deflecting attention from his baldness. This way, he didn\u2019t have to talk about his cancer. In December 2013, Jenn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidscancercare.ab.ca\/annual-report-2015\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}